I Hope You Dance
by restive nature
Summary: Standalone. A tear-stained letter on a lonely hilltop. MA implied. Rated for mature themes.


I Hope You Dance

Author: Restive Nature

Rating: PG-13 (for mature themes)

Disclaimer: I own nothing of the characters and settings of Dark Angel. There are the property of their creators Cameron/Eglee. This fiction is for private enjoyment and makes no profit.

Timeline: Takes place about one year after the series finale "Freak Nation".

A/N- this fiction is inspired by the song "I Hope You Dance" by Lee Ann Womack, from her album "I Hope You Dance". The song was composed by Mark D. Sanders & Tia Sillers.

Summary: A tear-stained letter on a lonely hilltop.

Three months.

It had been three months since the tears and pain and recriminations and more pain. It had been three months and a day since the loving, the passion, the freedom of two lonely bodies in the night. Three months since he'd had everything. And then nothing.

Alec stared at the paperwork in his trembling hands. He'd seen her come in to headquarters and as usual, completely ignore him. She'd disappeared into her office without one word to anyone. Which was becoming more and more the acceptable behavior from her. He'd heard that it only took two weeks for people to accept something as normal. Whether it was a new job, a new habit, a different attitude. In two weeks, it felt as if it were always that way. And judging from the lack of reaction from the other transgenics, Max's withdrawal had been accepted. Transgenics seemed to be no different from ordinaries in this respect.

Hell, he wasn't that different. After all, he'd accepted it as well.

At least he had the understanding of what had caused the change. And even if he didn't like it, he would live with it. Alec ran a hand over his eyes, letting the papers drop back down to the desk he'd commandeered for moments like this. And held back a sudden bubble of laughter. If the others were accepting of Max, they had become just as accepting of the change in him. Just as Max had seemed to turn into a ghost of herself, so had he. The witticisms, the snark, the essence that made him Alec and not simply 494 were lost. Not simply buried, as he'd done in the past to survive. No, this wasn't survival. It wasn't even floating along until something happened to snap him back to reality. He was being dragged along with the tide, thrown about a stormy sea of life.

He'd once called her a broken toy. But he could see now. Max had had the key, something she'd learned in the harsh world outside Manticore. A will to pick herself up and move on, fixing as she went. Yeah, she buried things, until they bubbled up to the surface, but eventually she'd deal. Whether by herself or from the two-by-four she called her best friend smacking her upside the head, she'd learned survival. And with the new, jagged, gaping hole in the center of him, Alec wondered if he'd ever learn that secret.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed before Max emerged from her private office. As always since he had first scented her heat driven pheromones, he was hyperaware of her. Unbidden, his eyes followed her progress across the expanse of room. He cocked his head to the side, realizing the minute change in her appearance. His eyes zoomed in on her. He sucked in his breath as he took in the tearstains on her cheeks, the evidence not totally wiped away. His eyes dropped guiltily, sure that he'd been the cause of this latest bout of unappreciated sobbing behind closed doors.

A small flash of white in her hand by her side caught his recently dormant curiosity. It was clenched tightly, a little wrinkled and carried protectively. Alec watched as she snatched it up to her chest as Dix brushed by her. She kept going, not responding to his muttered apology. He was out of his chair and following before he realized what instinct was driving him to do. Her pain was his and he couldn't allow it to go on. For either of their sakes.

She wound through the streets of Terminal City. Weaving and moving steadily. Studiously avoiding everyone in her path. Alec realized she was aware enough of her surroundings. She avoided the places where the transgenics she was on friendly terms with hung out. The little studio where Joshua plied his art, she went three blocks out of the way to stay away from. Alec continually wondered at her destination. She passed her apartment complex and his. She'd passed by the house on the outskirts where Logan, Original Cindy and Sketchy had holed up until the transgenics could safely get them away from the biotoxins of TC. And finally, she ran out of brick and stone and road.

Alec followed, dumbfounded as he found himself on a deer trail of a rarely explored area of their community. Scraggly trees tried to bloom in the rotten cesspool of what had to have once been a park. They failed miserably. Alec felt a shiver go through him, memories of childhood nightmares rising up along with bile in his throat. He took a deep breath, reminding himself that trees couldn't be sentient. They couldn't rise up out of the ground, surrounding him, holding him in and hiding him from his pack. A fear he'd had since he was young and his unit had lost members for various Manticore induced reasons. These trees weren't anything like the ones surrounding his first home, lush and full and smelling of life unfamiliar to a young child whose first and foremost scent memory was antiseptic cleaning agents. These trees were tactile proof of a twisted world, eking out existence where it could. And he could see between them, Max's lithe form.

He slipped through the trees, pausing when he came to the edge of a small clearing. There was a hillock, maybe ten feet in altitude. Max was at the top, kneeling. Alec chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully as he took in the radical difference she presented him with. She was… reverent. His eyes were glued to the small piece of antiquated religious artifact her hands were brushing over. Small, wooden, roughly carved, the cross thrust into the ground was understood only in a literary sense to him. Taught to him as a crutch for those unable to face the world without some promise of something better beyond this life. The information had been absorbed as partially useful trivia for future missions and forgotten until accessed upon need.

Max's movements were slow and purposeful as she lifted a trembling hand to her lips, pressing fingers to her swollen lips as tears streamed down her cheeks freely. She pulled away that hand and pressed the lingering kiss into the weather-stripped wood, her hand almost larger than the cross. Her shoulders slumped slightly as Alec puzzled over her reaction to this small thing, so out of place in a park, yet oddly right for what the place had become.

She pulled up a rock, set nearby, about the size off an egg. She looked once more at the paper, an envelope before setting it at the base of the cross where it met the earth. She set the rock over the envelope, seeming to make sure that it was secure. Her head tilted back, her eyes staring into the clouded sky as more tears welled in her eyes. At last she rose shakily and continued on, not once glancing back.

Alec waited until he was sure that she was gone and not coming back on a circuitous route. And then he crept up that small rise. He fell to his knees; unable to support his own body as suspicion gnawed at his middle. He felt the analysis of the place; the situation run through his brain, surprised that he could do that much. The ground was different from the rest of the park he'd walked over. It had been disturbed, recently. And though grass had sprouted in sparse patches, it was so much smaller than it's surrounding brethren. His hand skimmed over it, disconnected until his knuckle scraped against the splintering wood. His eyes lifted up and took in the date carved into it.

One month ago exactly.

His hand brushed over it, feeling the remaining warmth from her touch, like a living, breathing testament to the pain that had radiated from her.

He cast his mind back, trying to understand the significance of the date. There'd been a mission that night. They'd made a run for supplies. It was he, another X5 and a couple X6's. They'd completed the run and returned to base with no mishaps, minor or major. He'd seen her that night, in the infirmary. Alone in a room, a clipboard in hand as she sat on one of the cots in a small, sterile room. He'd worried, well worried more. But Pepper, their resident nurse-aide-all around know-it-all had assured him that she was simply there to help take inventory of the medical supplies just brought in. Alec had nodded in understanding, the brief flare of hope that she'd been there to meet him upon his arrival dying a swift death. She probably hadn't even realized that he'd been part of this mission. Like many other times. He would have walked away, but the sound of the clipboard hitting the floor caught his attention.

When he'd turned back, it was to see Max with the lumpy pillow clutched to her stomach, rocking back and forth. Her sobs were silent for the most part. Until it all came out in one gurgle of pain, rage, grief that was so horrendous to his ears, he felt as if the earth were opening to swallow them whole. And he ran.

He came back to himself, the moment, his head bowed. He could admit now that he knew deep down that there had been more going on that night than he could dare acknowledge. This knowing that gnawed at his middle, eating away at his senses until nothing was left but the pain. He reached down again, his hands shaking, tremor filled. He hesitated only a moment, a brief flash of conscience that he abandoned. And then the letter was in his hand, as reverently as it had been in hers.

Alec carefully eased open the plain white envelope, smoothing away the crease, careful not to tear the paper within. He unfolded the sheet that had been folded in thirds slowly. He took a deep breath before he began reading.

I heard a song this morning that made me think of you. I don't know why. Maybe because it was full of hope. Something I don't have anymore. Because I think I gave all my hope to you. My hope that when you came to this world, it would be in freedom. The hope that you would have the best of me. The best of your father. The hope that your eyes would be sea green like his. The hope that you'd call me Ma because I always protested that name. But we'd both know I'd love it. And the hope that you'd be braver. Braver than me.

I didn't realize how much I already loved you until I lost you baby. And no matter what I might have said, that night could never have been a mistake. Not just because it gave you to me, however briefly you were with me. Inside me.

I never believed in Heaven, until now. Because that's where you deserve to be. I love you baby. And I will never forget you.

Alec's world constricted around him, spiraling down to that letter, that grave. He collapsed upon the ground, his whole body shaken by the howls emanating from his pain torn throat. Their child. Their child was gone. And he'd never have those sacred, precious moments back. Time when he could have known his child. Son or daughter, it didn't matter. A part of them. The best of each of them and now it was lost. The only thing remaining, a cold, stark piece of wood in the ground.

He lay there trembling after words and whimpers had been driven from his body. Until he was spent. His face pressed against the cross, as if he could imprint what had been, upon the empty shell left. Take the emotion that should have been back into his body. Into his heart. He didn't know that time was passing. Everything had come to a standstill for him. Moving on required effort he no longer had.

But a gentle hand pressed into his shoulder. He reacted instinctively; a father protecting what remained of his crumbled family that had been struck down before it had ever begun. He rolled over, ready to strike, only to find a familiar face. Devoid of ever-present shotgun and cigar, Mole's face was stark against the gray of the sky above them. Alec lost some of his stiffness to puzzlement.

Mole sighed heavily before setting down a metal lock-box next to his friend. Alec watched as his green, scaled hand removed a thin chain from around his neck. There was a small key dangling from it, with which Mole unlocked the box. His eyes followed the transhuman's movements as Mole leaned forward to reach the note that until now had been crumpled in Alec's fist. It lay beside him, caught in the small patch of sparse grass. Alec would have protested, had he voice. But when Mole lifted the lid, he sucked in his breath. Inside were more envelopes, notes, and letters. Some were folded others were not. All seemed filled with Max's words. Mole placed the latest on top, his hands gentle, understanding as he pressed it in so that the paper would not be torn as he closed the lid over them. He locked the box and set the chain around his neck once more. And then he turned dark eyes to the grieving man.

"She's at the bar," Mole murmured hollowly, the normal rancor in his voice gone. Alec nodded slowly. Mole reached out a hand and Alec took it hesitantly, only to be hoisted to his feet. But before he could go to her, Mole reached into his pocket and withdrew a key, identical to the one around his neck. He pressed it into Alec's hand and then withdrew to secure the lock-box under his arm as he ambled off.

Alec stared down at the key and then after his friend. The paradox of hatred of humans, filled with more humanity than the majority of Seattle. He rubbed his thumb over the cold metal and smiled sadly. Maybe Max had been right. Maybe Heaven did exist. For it seemed to him that he'd found a Guardian Angel of sorts.

It was easy to find her in TC's only bar. In the back, in the dark, in an area all the transgenics and transhumans avoided. Upon entering, he could feel the coldness and pain emanating from that corner. He strode purposefully to her. But she didn't see him. Her head bent over an untouched drink. People flowed around him. This too had become the accepted normal among them. Max in the bar, isolating herself in the midst of a crowd. No one paid attention to her, knowing by now that she needed to be by herself.

The whole way over, he'd wondered what he could say to her. Did he tell her that he knew now? What that night had yielded besides the stubborn standoff between them. Did he comfort her in their loss? Did he rage at her for keeping it from him? Words had never failed him before. But he feared they might now. And he knew that they just couldn't continue like this. Whatever the outcome, he'd already lost enough and there was nothing left. He would mark moment by moment until he could get back to survival. Just take it second by second until it worked itself through.

"Max," he spoke softly, knowing that she would hear him. It didn't matter if she ignored him. He would speak and she would hear and remember. Their genetics made it impossible for her to do otherwise. But she did look up. Alec stayed where he was as she cringed back a little; her eyes wide and panicked.

"Alec. Don't-!"

"Please listen," he interrupted, his voice still soft and low. She cringed back even further, but he didn't let the pain this caused him show. He glanced back at the other transgenics and transhumans, constantly moving, flowing, following their own internal rhythms. Such a contrast to his and Max's still forms. "Life is Hell. But it's all we've got." He sighed and tilted his head, a sorry semblance of his former humor ghosting over his features. "And when you get the choice to sit out or dance. I hope you dance."

No more was said and he turned away. But the tremulous smile on her lips at his words gave him hope.

Some day.

Some day they'd be okay.

End

A/N- To all those reading this, I have never felt the pain of miscarriage for which I am thankful. I can only hope that I accurately represented in any way shape or form something of what one feels at the loss of a child. And for those of you that have experienced any form of loss of a child, my heart goes with you.


End file.
